Wednesday, August 10, 2016

‘Dyson Sphere’ Star Mysteriously and Dramatically Dimming

The mysterious star with the catchy nickname that refuses to explain
itself just got a little more mysterious … and a lot dimmer. Data on KIC
8462852 – aka Tabby’s Star, aka the star that might be surrounded by a
Dyson sphere – was analyzed by another set of astronomers and they
noticed a 200-day period where it dimmed drastically in comparison to
other times. Did the aliens sucking power from the star via the sphere
need an emergency energy boost? Did something else temporarily block it
from our view? Is this proof it’s some new kind of star? Or what?KIC 8462852 was nicknamed Tabby’s Star after its discoverer,
astronomer Tabetha Boyajian. The erratic behavior of its light,
especially the constant dimming, caused speculation that it was
partially or fully surrounded by a so-called Dyson sphere of panels
absorbing its energy to be used by an alien species for fuel. Farfetched
but not yet eliminated as an explanation.According to a new study,
Caltech astronomer Ben Montet and Joshua Simon of the Carnegie
Institute measured the light from the star recorded by the Kepler
satellite observatory over four years. The dimming occurred at a steady
rate of around 0.34 percent per year for about the first thousand days
of observation. At that point, the dimming increased dramatically to an
annual rate of 2.5 percent for the next 200 days. It then returned to
the 0.34 rate for the duration of the Kepler observation. Montet said in
an interview with Gizmodo:

The part that really surprised me was just how rapid and
non-linear it was. We spent a long time trying to convince ourselves
this wasn’t real.

The big dip was real

But it was. What caused the sudden drop in light? Suspecting some
cosmic mass (comets, thick dust cloud) may have passed in front of
Kepler, Montet and Simon checked the brightness of 500 surround stars
and found that only KIC 8462852 took a dip. That means the cause is
either in front of, around or inside of Tabby’s Star.Well, that narrows it down, doesn’t it?

These results introduce us to another delightfully unexpected piece of the puzzle.

Tabetha Boyajian has set up a Kickstarter crowdfunding
program to raise enough money to use the Las Cumbres Observatory Global
Telescope Network for a year to watch her namesake and catch it in the
act of flickering, dimming, Dyson sphere construction, starship fueling
or whatever else it might be.

We will keep you all in the loop as things progress, and
will soon send out surveys to gather information for reward fulfillment.

What would Galileo think of a Dyson sphere? Would crowdfunding have saved him from church persecution?